I threw my three year old a story book themed birthday party not too long ago.  Details are here.

The gift bag was a collection of a book, suckers, cookies, whistles, and other little tiny pieces of dollar store crap that you love stepping on in the middle of the night when you are trying to make your way to the bathroom to pee.  To my friends who came- you are welcome. 

But I couldn’t find a flipping bag to put all this crap in and I was NOT going to go store to store on some crazy gift bag hunt.  Plus I’m cheap frugal and If I can’t find it for close to free it ain’t makin it into my cart.

I’m a master procrastinator.  My motto for years has been:  Procrastination leads to inspiration.  Mark that one down people- because it’s TRUE!!  The party was Saturday.  Thursday I was sitting at my desk all bummy and stuff because I didn’t have a cute bag to put all the kid crap stuff into.  And then it dawned on me…like a spotlight being shined in your face when you are pulled over at night by the cops and you have been drinking..(not that this has happened to ME..I watch cop shows is all…I swear.)  Anyway- my moment of clarity arrives and I realize I CAN SEW!!  I’ll MAKE my own bags!  Woot!  It’s Thursday.  The party is Saturday.  I’ve done NOTHING to prepare yet.  Procrastination at its finest.

So I ran home that day and got to work.  This is what I came up with:

To make this easy five minute bag you will need:

Cute fabric

Thread

Sewing machine

Scissors

I chose a different fabric when taking the pictures because this was my test piece.

Cut a rectangle of fabric for the height and width you need with seam allowances.  My fabric was 11 X 24 to accommodate the book.  I put the book on the fabric, folded the fabric over it and cut.

Fold the rectangle (with right sides together) to make a square- zig zag the edges to prevent fraying and then reinforce with a straight stitch.  This will make your rectangle into a square little bag.

You now have the bag part.  Next finish the upper edge by folding over the top and using a straight stitch all the way around.

Don’t laugh at my uneven edges.  I was in a hurry!

Now you want to make the handle.  I thought about adding a nice drawstring or ribbon handle, but I did not have the time so I decided to just put in a little rectangle to create a handle.  Easy stuff.  I like easy.

To do this, I folded the bag in half and cut a little square close to the top of the bag.

Next I needed to zig zag around the edges of this little square in order to keep from fraying.  What I SHOULD have done was finish this edge better, but again…last minute Liz.  So instead, I chose a tighter zig zag stitch and went over the edge a couple of times.  If you are not waiting till the last minute like me, I would say to spend a little more time making this part look pretty.  It annoyed me after wards that it looked so unfinished.

Finished product!  A nifty little reusable bag that creates less waste!  AND only took about five minutes so I really didn’t care what happened to it after it left my house.

The party fabric is much much better I think.

I’m using mine this weekend when we travel to hold my curling iron. 

Happy sewing!

~Elizabeth